Priyata Raghavan and her entrepreneurial success at Sai Packaging

       Priyata Raghavan 

The author has firmly believed that “Women are largely loyal, committed and resilient in business”. They achieve success in their endeavors despite being multi-taskers. We all know being a home maker is a gigantic task; looking after household chores, managing children, their education, their activities, arranging wardrobes for self and family. After all this, running one of the largest packaging companies in the country is nothing short of a miracle! Priyata Raghavan, is one such woman who is like a role model for young aspiring women leaders riding success with her hard work. She is the younger daughter of Vijay Raghavan, the founder of Sai Packaging Company and heads the overall operations of the company as deputy CEO.

Vijay Raghavan came from a modest background having witnessed financial heights and lows in his childhood. Despite difficulties he completed his education through college and then went on to achieve an MBA. Middle aged, in his late 40s, in 1993 he decided to set up his maiden venture Sai Security Printers with meagre capital that he could arrange. With sheer hard work he established his credibility and adopted good business practices and ethical values that became the way forward for the business and for his family to follow. His wife was a big support, with a masters in English literature she pursued job as a teacher. In the beginning of a new millennium, the business felt the need of more family members and at this time she quit her job to join as administrator, a designation she has held for the past 20 years. 

Vijay Raghavan carried on his security printing business, printing lottery tickets for various state Governments. In 1996 they invested in an imported, one of the early 13-inch 12 color narrow web flexo press for printing scratch coupons. Due to a sudden ban on lottery by the government, they were left evaluating what to do next. Vijay Raghavan initiated his journey into packaging by setting up Sai Packaging Company and putting the swanky new press to use instead, for Labels, Beverages and liquor. That was how they started working in Labels.

Vijay Raghavan is blessed with two daughters and being a proponent of women empowerment, encouraged his daughters to achieve the best in education. His elder daughter is a maths graduate from South Campus Delhi, and currently heads the Tutor Quality Department at CueLearn India, an e-learning startup focused on math education globally.  She is Carnegie Mellon University Dean's Scholar with a master’s in information systems management. His younger daughter Priyata who now heads the North India operations of Sai Packaging as deputy CEO since 2005, attended Holy Child School New Delhi and Sri Venkateswara College in South Campus, New DELHI. She did her MBA from IIM Lucknow and has been a gold medalist through all these institutions. She specialized in Marketing and Finance.

Priyata joined ITC Limited in 2003 as a Management Trainee in Sales and Marketing. She considers her time at ITC crucial for her business future, working on brands like Ashirwaad and Sunfeast that became household names. She gained insights into sales and distribution channels, travelling extensively across the country. She joined Sai Packaging right after spending a few years at ITC Limited. This was at a time when the business was going through a transformation from the lottery business into a world of labels and packaging. It was an important trajectory dependent on succession. She has spent over 20 years at the helm of SAI, wearing many hats like heading Sales, Operations, Finance etc. As with every family-run enterprise, her duties/task far outnumber any designation. After initially starting out in finance, then sales and operations, she worked her way to leading Profit Centers for the overall business as well as heading Business Development, Finance and Corporate Affairs for the Company. 

Reminiscing her early days at SAI, she says, “Memories of selling packaging those days, are very memorable, albeit for very different reasons. I was handed a few of the challenging customers to prove my mettle. I cannot name them here of course, but I can say that my learnings from selling to these difficult customers was far higher than the business earnings from them. I still carry those early lessons with me!”. As for the challenges she faced as a woman, she goes on to add, “Printing as such, especially the convertor business has few women and there is always resistance both within and without for a woman on the shop floor and as a leader. I overcame initial resistance with hard work, resilience, passion and delivery to be trusted by all stakeholders as an inclusive leader. “Priyata firmly believes that there are advantages of being a female leader. Women bring in the innate ability to multitask and establish an emotional connect. Their higher social quotient and emotional quotient helps build tangible and solid relationships amongst all levels of the team and stakeholders. This ability helps the teams to go above and beyond, and win trust with suppliers, customers and investors. She asserts that she has always tried to look at the end consumer requirements so as to understand the packaging needs of brands and translate that back to her teams within the company. This helped her in winning business. Sai, until she joined, was a men-only organisation 20 years ago, but contrary to that, it now employs women at various positions in the company. Sai has evolved to recognise the merit and talent in women.

Priyata's father, Vijay Raghavan, inspired her with his business acumen and entrepreneurial spirit. He mentored her throughout her career, alongside other professionals in both family and business, which contributed to her growth. She avidly reads biographies and management books to gather insights and experiences. She has, over the years, been the recipient of many awards.

·       Business leader of the Year 2023, Women in Print by Printweek

·       Tycoons of Faridabad by the Jagran Group in 2019

·       Appreciation Award for Women Empowerment by FICCI 2019

·       Young Entrepreneur Recognition by DLF Industries 2020

Despite her entrepreneurial responsibilities, she has successfully raised two children. Advait, her 13-year-old son excels in football, academics, and music. Zoya, her 10-year-old daughter is an outstanding student and a dedicated Kathak dancer, performing across India and winning numerous awards.

Vijay Raghavan continues to guide and mentor Sai Packaging as Chairman. Arvind Sekhar -his elder son in law, husband of Priyata’s elder sister, is the CEO of the company looking after National Customers & Corporate Account Relationships, Strategic R&D Initiatives, and Investor Relationships. Arvind is master’s in chemical engineering, and has worked with International Papers and Ariba, an American software and information technology services company located in Palo Alto, California now acquired by German software maker SAP. He was in the US for 13 years, before he came back to India to join the company. 

Sai packaging is multilocation company serving FMCG brands needing a pan-India vender presence. Sai is the preferred partner for them with production facilities in Faridabad NCR and Bengaluru in the south of India. Their product range includes Labels, Cartons, Leaflets, Inserts and Security printing instruments. 

With 14 offset and flexo production lines they work out of the shop floor area admeasuring 270,000 square feet employing a 700 plus workforce at two locations. They invested in digital printing capabilities some years back and found digital solutions extremely useful in giving options with speed to the world of packaging. Priyata believes that hybrid technologies that toggle both conventional and digital technologies, have great scope for growth, in the years to come, however still, the industry needs to overcome the pricing challenge for digital.

Finally, regarding her vision for future, she says, “We want to consolidate that position to grow much faster in the years to come. We want to be known for our initiatives in Creativity, Trust, and Sustainability across the board.

Written by Harveer Sahni, Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited, New Delhi March 2025

Rajesh Chadha; From small beginnings to big success!

 The history of Rajesh Chadha, Managing Director of Update Prints Pvt. Ltd., which owes its inception and inheritance to P C Chadha & Co. started by his grandfather, is an interesting one. The first thoughts on letterpress, managing waste problems and family support were all highlights along the way that came on a journey from Kobe in Japan to New Delhi in India, following is the Indian Label converter’s history and thoughts for the future.

Update Factory

 The very beginning

In the late 1970s and early 1980s driving on the western part of New Delhi’s Ring Road, many factories could be seen from far away. One such tall building was the factory of P C Chadha & Co. in the Naraina Industrial Area with a signboard on top visible from far. Around the mid-1980s when I was a commercial siliconiser selling release papers, I came to know that P C Chadha & Co. manufactured stickers and was a prospective customer. It was then a matter of time before I supplied some reams of release paper to them. During one of my visits to them, I spent two hours discussing why the stickers they were supplying were curling. I was quite naïve then but with time and experience, I have written on my blog a very widely read article on controlling curl. The young man I met was Rajesh Chadha, who was running P C Chadha & Co. and is the present Managing Director of Update Prints Pvt. Ltd. which owes its inception and inheritance to P C Chadha & Co. started by his grandfather.

 Starting up

In 1924, young P C Chadha, living in Kobe, Japan, initiated an enterprise producing paper transfer labels with a vision that branding would be an important tool for sales of any consumer product, label being the face of any product. Sometime in the midst of turbulent times during World War II in 1942–43, P C Chadha decided to return to his homeland in Rawalpindi, then a part of undivided India and now in Pakistan. Little did he realize that in yet another five years he would have to move again! At the time of India’s partition in 1947 he came to Mumbai to set up his production for maintaining continuity in his passion for producing transfers, the labels of that time. Chadha soon came to recognise that the weather in Mumbai was not suitable for his product, and he moved operations to Pune. Before long he was still restless at the location and travelled up North in India to Patel Nagar in New Delhi where he set up his factory on a 150 square yards plot. He initially worked from home and later from his small factory.

Sewing machine with transfer labels

As an entrepreneur’s son, the author had seen his father get advertisement boards hand painted by artists for advertising their stationery products. There was no alternative then. When one saw the transfer labels one used to wonder how they could achieve such exquisite printing direct on sewing machines, postal vans, crockery etc. Years later as the label industry was evolving into screen printing, I saw the same exquisite type of printing, which was different from screen printing, in my cousin’s factory making automotive filters. I realised they were using transfer labels like the ones P C Chadha & Co. produced. I was amazed to learn that the process employed by Chadha for printing was lithography. Based on the principle that oil and water do not mix, printing is done using stone blocks. In 1950 P C Chadha was joined in the business by his son Tilak Raj Chadha. They bought a used lithographic printing machine from England to expand their paper transfers business. Evolving further they later shifted to printing on cylinder type printing press using Zinc blocks mounted on wooden bases.

 Major changes

Major changes started to happen when P C Chadha’s grandson Rajesh Chadha joined the business in 1976. The same year they moved factory from Patel Nagar to a 600 square yards plot in the nearby Naraina Industrial Area. With Rajesh at the helm, in 1978 he started to produce stickers by the manual screen-printing process. For the next ten years screen printing business became the mainstay for Chadhas. One of the first major decisions taken by Rajesh Chadha was to buy a European automatic Svecia Screen printing machine to print a full 20” x 30” sheet, quite big for that time. The 1990s was a very eventful decade for the Indian label industry. It was the time when many of today’s stalwarts in the Indian label industry became visible. For Rajesh Chadha also, it was time to shed the conventional image and adopt a modern look. It was during this period that the conventional sticker became an engineered label. Rajesh set up Update Prints in 1994 as his flagship venture thereon, gradually taking over all the business of P C Chadha & Co, which was eventually wound up later in 2009. Sensing the need to modernize with faster machines at Update Prints; he bought his first rotary flexo label press, a ”Focus“. There was no looking back after this.

 Investments

Rajesh and Aditya Chadha

In 2001 he bought an Orthotec intermittent letterpress at Labelexpo Asia held in Singapore. Two years later he impulsively bought a Rotatek label press displayed at a New Delhi print exhibition, on an immediate payment basis in full, taking his industry colleagues by surprise. Update Prints under his leadership has been acquiring new state-of-the-art equipment at regular intervals. From the single 600 square yards factory the company was soon operating from three different plots, one of 1000 square yards and two of 600 square yards. It was now time to consolidate for a few years. In another strategic move in 2013, Update Prints moved all their manufacturing operations under one roof to a facility admeasuring almost 25,000 square yards in land area and 50,000 square feet shop floor. This exercise required the involvement of a huge amount of money, time, effort and commitment. The land was designated agricultural land. Setting up an industrial project on it was illegal. Many people in the area have done it but Rajesh Chadha is committed to tread the straight path. He got the land use changed to industrial. Any Indian will know the kind of effort and time this takes. Infrastructure was another problem; the nearest power feeder was far away and to expedite the matter of bringing power to the unit, Update Prints had to install 50 electricity poles at their own expense. The approach road to the unit was in shambles, it had to be re-laid at their own expense. Update Prints now employs over 100 workforce and has a total of eight label presses.

 Diverse technologies

Reminiscing about his work in the initial days in labels he says, ”The first label that I created was for Yardley Cosmetics“ he further adds that in those days he had bought two Newfoil three station hot-foiling presses. He used to love working with them creating innovative products. It was the most satisfying part for him because he could imagine and then create labels that would get appreciation from buyers. He has over the years equipped Update Prints with diverse technologies in label printing, decorating and finishing. Whether it is offset printed labels printed on his Rotatek Brava or labels created on flexo, letterpress, hot or cold foiling, screen printing, etc. his company is never left wanting for the ability to create. He is proud to say that  “I deliver quality, service and satisfaction to my customers and for this reason work comes to me automatically. I do not have to waste time running after work.” While discussing digital printing I was not surprised that his reaction was similar to that of a larger part of the Indian label fraternity, ”It does not make sense to me at this point of time. I can print good quality short runs cost effectively on offset and letterpress“. A very interesting change that I noted in Rajesh during my talks with him is that he has started to encourage Indian entrepreneurs who have excelled. While most of his equipment is imported yet in recent times he saw the potential in an Indian manufacturer of label presses, Multitec. He was not hesitant and bought the equipment. In fact, he has followed it up by acquiring two more.

Family life

Aditya on shopfloor

Rajesh Chadha being the elder son in his family, like in most migrant Punjabi families of that time in New Delhi, joined the business while he was still studying. He is an alumnus of New Delhi’s Salwan Public School and later studied commerce in Dayal Singh College for B.Com and finished with a master’s in commerce. His wife Anju is a master’s degree holder in English and takes an active interest in the business. Rajesh and Anju have two children who are both now married. Their daughter Upasna studied at the prestigious London School of Economics and spent time at Oxford University. Son Aditya, like his father, studied commerce from Delhi’s Shri Ram College of Commerce and later completed his MBA in marketing from ”Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey, USA“. Then after a one-and-a-half-year work experience in AT&T in the US, he returned to India to join his father at Update Prints as director. Rajesh fondly mentored him to take charge of this company.

Update Prints’ business has transformed over the years. They do very little transfer labels business now and largely produce self-adhesive labels. Their customers are mostly leading FMCG companies. Ten percent of their produce goes into export. While in Patel Nagar, waste management was a big problem for them. With the company growing continuously, disposal was becoming a gigantic issue. It was one of the reasons besides expansion that they moved to this present location some 35 Kilometers from Delhi. Here they have developed collectors who take the waste and convert it for various usages and applications. He strongly feels someone needs to work in the direction of managing or recycling this waste effectively and believes a solution will evolve. He also feels going linerless is also a good direction but like digital printing it will be some time before this technology becomes adaptable extensively.

 Rajesh Chadha is satisfied about the time he has spent in the label industry, he says, ”It is an interesting industry. There is lot of work and room for creativity and innovation“. He is proud of his achievements. He has led the company to consistently achieve an almost 20% per annum growth rate, which is above the perceived industry rate. He is beaming when he says, ”Growth comes naturally to my company because of the quality of our work. It is not fueled by huge borrowings from banks“. No wonder he heads a fully family owned successful and growing zero debt company!

 Written in May 2014 and updated in April2024.

 

Pamex 2023 justifies theme; “Convergence of print.”

 

Recreated Gutenberg press at the 
International Printing Museum,
Carson, California

Ever since 1450 when goldsmith Johannes Gutenberg invented the movable-type printing press, which started the Printing Revolution, printing technology has been evolving. The technology has come a long way from the first use of flat wooden blocks being inked and stamped on to paper to production of metal typesetting mechanizing the process. The history is very interesting and long. Printing process or technology has evolved in many forms of contact printing from flat bed to offset printing in sheet and roll to other forms of printing like rotogravure and  screen to finally reach the present-day non-contact digital printing without the need of blocks or plates and with just click of button from computer to print.

 

An Offset, Gravure and flexo combination press.

With time, labels and packaging evolved and there was a dire need to decorate the packages and labels to catch the attention of discerning customers. Embellishing processes have also been developed to become an inherent part of printing and converting process. These include varnishing, hot-foiling, cold-foiling, embossing, debossing, lamination, die-cutting etc. With the development of different printing technologies it became apparent that each technology has its own advantage. For high quality images to reproduce skin tones and vignettes, offset is preferred. For the desired pantone shades, flexo is preferred. To achieve higher deposition of ink, screen printing delivers the desired results and to get the good metallic effects in printing with metallic inks, gravure printing is used. To produce personalization in print, have variable printing, to achieve track and trace information and security information, digital provides the option. The advent of organized retail and e-commerce becoming a part of our daily life, has brought about the need to bring the best of each technology together and achieve excellence in printing and packaging. The organisers of Pamex 2023 exhibition, All India Federation of Master Printers (AIFMP), in association with Print-Packaging.com saw immense value in adopting the theme “Convergence in Print” and delivering the importance of this theme to printers and other visitors to this prime show.

Pamex Roadshow at Haridwar

The theme was conveyed to the printers in the nation at different geographical venues in India  by the promoters. Roadshows with presentations by sponsors offering equipment with convergence in print and panel discussions were a part of these presentations. Technical presentations on technologies such as printed electronics were also a part of the roadshows. Diverse information and knowledge was delivered to attendees at locations like Bangalore, Pune, Guwahati, Indore and Haridwar. The focused efforts by the team of AIFMP headed by President Ravi Joshi, Tushar Dhote and organizer Anil Arora of Print-Packaging.com produced a successful event. The final show Pamex 2023 held at Bombay Exhibition Centre Goregaon Mumbai on 27^th-30^th March 2023 was an immense success. 33,812 visitors and over 450 exhibitors thronged the venue and came from many countries around the world.

On the penultimate evening Pamex 2023 played host to a glittering awards ceremony at the Gala Exhibitors’ Evening. AIFMP decided to institute several new awards to add to the prestigious NAEP and  VCPLA Awards that were given away in the last edition. The awards was with full attendance and printers and suppliers networked and celebrated the togetherness.

 

I present my walk-through pictures of the event:

A. Appadurai and Abhishek Bhatnagar HP

Vetaphone-Weldon Stand

 

Ramesh and Sidhrath Kejriwal of Parksons Pkg.with
Nishikant Shirodhkar and Mahendra Shah at Omet stand

UV Graphic Technologies stand

Sailesh Nema Michelman

With Noel D'Cunha Editor Printweek India

VeePee Graphics Stand

The Gala dinner cum awards night

Entrance to Gala Dinner and AIFMP Awards night

Felicitations!

Author handing over award to winners

Jak Printers the most awarded! With their multiple trophies!

Written and compiled by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Ltd. New Delhi April 2023

PrintWeek Awards return in 2022

 PrintWeek Award returns in 2022

By Noel D'Cunha 08 Mar 2022

After a two-year pause, the Indian print industry’s flagship scheme, PrintWeek Awards will once again go live. The entries to the twelfth edition of PrintWeek Awards 2022 will officially open on 1 May 2022 and the PrintWeek Awards Night will be held on 27 September 2022.

The Covid-19 pandemic proved to be a crisis that humanity has faced. The Indian print industry too had its fair share of woes. But after two years of challenges, the print industry is hoping to rebound this year, though inflationary and supply concerns related to input material continue to post challenges to the print industry.

 "After being forced to pause the Awards scheme in 2020 and 2021 because of the Covid-19 pandemic, PrintWeek Awards resume, albeit in a limited capacity form," said Sudhanva Jategaonkar, B2B business head at Haymarket SAC Publishing.

 PrintWeek Performance Awards in 2022 will have a total of 10 awards instead of the six awards in the past eleven editions. These entries in this category will be audited plus vetted on the basis of financial as well as contribution to the industry.

 In the Quality Awards, there will be 13 Awards that will celebrate “the latest and the best”. This edition of PrintWeek Awards will introduce a new category: Special Covid-19 Awards, a total of five awards  will be presented to recognise factories and teams in the Indian print industry who have gone above and beyond the call of duty.

 "By returning to host the annual PrintWeek Awards event, we would be celebrating the achievements of the print industry and those working in it, in the tough past two years, and have emerged unscathed," added Jategaonkar. "As we reflect on where we are as an industry, this celebration of the extraordinary work that is accomplished each and every day by those in the print and packaging business. It also gives the industry an opportunity to savour the challenges and successes."

As Kayyum Memon, director of Vadodara-based Concord Printing Press said while talking to PrintWeek, “To be certain, the last two years were filled with many challenges, but also many achievements to celebrate. Our people have worked harder than ever amid challenging circumstances of the Covid-19 pandemic to achieve our goals, and make a positive difference to our company.”

The pandemic may have altered the way the print industry does business or may not, but it hasn’t stopped from doing what it does best – excellent printing.

Combatting the more vicious Covid-2

The continuous wailing of ambulance sirens, send a chill down one’s spine, another loved one from somebody’s family, suffering from the impact of second edition of covid-19, is on the lookout for a hospital bed and the much-needed evasive supply of oxygen as life support. It is ironic that in today’s time of technological advancement many unsuspecting innocent human beings are losing a desperately fought battle for survival against a more vicious and fast spreading variants of corona virus. Medical infrastructures are crumbling under the huge volume of patients reporting infections. Vaccination program is struggling to meet targets that keep becoming difficult by the day, the government has opened registration of people for vaccination, but it is a gigantic task which presently at the very outset, means reaching out to over 50% of the total population of almost 1.4 billion people which would be about 70 million people spread across a large geographical terrain in 29 states and 7 Union territories. Recently a newspaper reported the registrations for vaccinations coming at the rate of 55000 per second! A bigger danger is that much of rural India which accounts for almost 65% of the total population (90million) was largely unaffected and now the virus seems to be creeping there as well. The problem is not only India, as in today’s time given the travel mobility of people from all walks of life and with their relatives spread around the globe with different natural and adopted nationalities, the present dangerous second phase of the pandemic is a global problem and unless checked, it may reach very scary levels impacting the world at large. The second wave is so vicious that it has impacted every other home. It is heart-warming to see that governments around the world understand the problem and are coming forward to cooperate with each other in combatting this menace. On the domestic front we see religious bodies, NGOs, industry and many others doing their bit to defuse the pain and anguish due to the impact of the pandemic. The Indian label industry is also taking steps to contribute towards the safety and wellbeing of their workforce and wherever possible contributing to the society as well.

Kuldip Goel

The author reached out to many leading label manufacturers to assess the level of infections in the two phases of covid and their reactions to combat the menace.  The author, his most family members including both sons K D Sahni and Pawandeep Sahni, MD of Omet India Pvt. Ltd. and 4 employees in his company Weldon Celloplast Ltd. tested positive. Kuldip Goel president LMAI (Label Manufacturers Association of India) and Chairman/MD of Any Graphics NOIDA  reported 25 of his team including 14 of top management along with his son Naveen went through the ordeal. He restricts himself from saying he helped his people during the hard time but prefers to use the word support instead. Besides ensuring the job security of his people, providing financial and medical support they even arranged counselling to almost 100+ people in bringing them out from depression. Kuldip along with his colleagues in board of directors of LMAI are already planning to import Oxygen concentrators for the needy. Abhay Datta Director UV Graphic Technologies where 4 people were infected including himself and his son, has prepared guidelines and implemented them for awareness and safe working within the business. He has developed UVC disinfection devices for articles to contain spread of corona. He is unhappy on how the government has dealt with the outbreak, he says, “It is a bad situation, really sad that the government has failed to control it.” Twelve persons including himself and his plant head in Anuj Bharagava lead Kumar Labels suffered infection, but Anuj went ahead and made a makeshift clinic with Oxygen & IV facility at his NOIDA factory. As also helping communities by enabling concentrators and oxygen cylinders. He too is concerned about the handling of the spread, “It is a terrible period for India, and humanity. We wish things were better anticipated and planned by the authorities. However still, we are all doing our best to help each other. Sad to see some people trying to profiteer by selling drugs and services in black” he says.

Nirav Shah

In central and west India there is a bigger concentration of label companies and there too most are impacted though some have succeeded in limiting the impact of the pandemic.  LMAI honorary secretary and Director of Indore headquartered Pragati Graphics and Packaging has been deeply involved in arranging hospital beds, medicines, oxygen, oxygen cylinders, etc. for a lot of people from and around Indore. He has also arranged two oxygen concentrators which are being given to needy people. Commenting on the 25 people infected in his company he said, “To me the picture looks gloomy. The industry was slowly picking up as the demand was growing. This wave of pandemic has again brought the industry to its knees and the situation will become very bad if the wave of Covid does not recede soon.” Nirav Shah heading Letragraphix in Ahmedabad had to re-engineer his production plans to meet timelines and service his customers efficiently since 20-25% of his workforce got infected. He has stood by his employees in full even during lockdown and providing whatever support was needed. On the social front Nirav finds satisfaction from the fact that they have donated sanitisers, ration kits and food packets besides supporting an NGO called Karma Foundation on regular basis. He states that these are unpredictable times which have taught many lessons to everyone to get adjusted to a new normal of work culture and pray for the world to heal soon.

Vinod Vazhapulli of Skanem

Mumbai based Skanem India Pvt. Ltd. (Formerly Skanem Interlabels) a subsidiary of Skanem AS headquartered in Norway with presence in 8 countries also reported 15% to 20% of workforce as infected in its 4 sites within India. Vinod Vazhapulli Managing Director informed that the company has taken care of their employees by paying before time in full without any deductions whatsoever ever since the start of pandemic and supporting wherever help was needed. The company had them covered under the Insurance scheme with a coverage of Sum insured of Rs. 2 Lakhs especially for Covid by Skanem India, thereby ensuring that all their Medical and treatment expenses are taken care of under Cash less transaction schemes. Online counselling sessions / Yoga classes etc. were organized ensuring that any kind of anxiety or mental dis-order that would have developed due to the pandemic or extended lock downs are handled by experts, taking care of the mental wellbeing of their employees. As a social endeavor They have provided Medical aid , Food & PPEs to the Maljipada village where the Mumbai plant is, during the peak of Lock downs last year. Vinod says, “ there has been an impact of this outbreak on our Industry, the recovery had commenced but with this 2nd wave it is again pushed back to uncertain times”.

Raveendran

South India based Rajeev Nair CMD of Stallion Group informed that 25 % of their team including 5% from management were impacted, he is worried that the business that went down in the first phase of covid had started to recover is now again adversely impacted in the second phase. Raveendran of Seljegat in Sivakasi is thankful that they have been cautious with their workforce, so the infections were minimal, just two employees and his younger brother were impacted mildly and recovered. They have in place a strict protocol of checking temperature, oxygen levels and providing sanitisers. They also provide herbal immunity boosting tea to all workforce who must maintain safe distance and are divided into two shifts. Except for a week of lock down, they have been working right through and in fact are in 100% production. They provide separate buses for women and other workers making several trips to maintain distance and transport them to and fro safely. They have even invited government officials to study their systems that have helped in curtailing the infection. We see similar situation in J K Fine Prints Mumbai, Director Himanshu Kapur who is son of Surender Kapur the founder president of LMAI says, “We had just one infection between the two phases, we have given full financial support to our workers as also provided them and their families with masks, sanitisers and other needs” he further adds, “After the initial jolt, I now feel that label industry will not be so drastically impacted. We  will see  growth coming from Tier 2 and Tier 3 cities who will patronise organised retail for their needs”.

Sandeep Zaveri of Total Print

The best response came from LMAI past president Sandeep Zaveri heading Total Print Solutions Pvt. Ltd. Mumbai, he says, “Between the two phases none in our company got infected due to strict norms maintained by us and supporting our team with full salaries and food needs” he adds, “I think God has created this for us all human beings to go slow, spend quality time with our near and dear ones”.

Many NGOs(Non-Government Organisations), religious bodies, companies and individuals are contributing in whichever way they can reduce the sufferings of people. Donations and help from these groups keep pouring in and exhibits the caring that emanates from these groups. However, in contrast we have reached a situation when politicians continue to play the blame game accusing each other for the sufferings of population, with their eyes on the next election and access to country’s coffers they are insensitive to the pain people are going through. Allowing election rallies and religious gatherings of hundreds of thousand people not following covid norms has contributed to the massive spread. The central government says state government is wrong and vice-versa while the innocent citizens gasp for that breadth which will come loaded with some oxygen so that they may still survive to be with their loved ones another day. It is so unfortunate that we talk of financial outlay of billions in our budgets yet a commodity like oxygen that is an imperative for survival has become a political point for our leaders blaming it on logistics. The pain and suffering do not end for the relatives of those who have lost their fight against covid and passed away, there is neither the means to take the bodies to cremation grounds nor the space to cremate them. Will residents of another developed country understand this kind of situation?  All this while the needy yearn for that breadth which will decide if they exist the next day or not. Added to this the unscrupulous citizens who look at this as an opportunity to make more money, they make the Shylock in Shakespeare’s story "Merchent of Venice" appear as a reasonable person, he may have just asked for a pound of flesh from just one borrower, here these black marketeers are trading in oxygen, essential medicines and life support equipment to draw unreasonable profit from the lives of a suffering generation. 

History will not and should not pardon such unethical persons who have no feelings that a grandparent, a parent, a spouse, a sibling or an offspring are so  precious part that one yearns for them to be there always and losing them is not imaginable. Courts in India appear to be understanding the gravity of the situation but who will teach the politicians who are the executive running the country. It is not just watching on TV that people are suffering and dying, but it is now being felt and being experienced by all households largely. A friend, a relative, a business associate, a colleague or a loved one just vanishes losing out to the pandemic leaving a void and a hollow feeling whereby the tears have no place to go.

 

Written by Harveer Sahni Chairman Weldon Celloplast Limited New Delhi May 2021

Reproduction permitted by giving credit to author and link to blog http://harveersahni.blogspot.com